Social capital as a concept and phenomenon

The absence of a concerted approach to defining social capital has received a considerable attention in literature. The employment of the term is subject to critique and defense. The search for unitary definition is notoriously pursued. The paper claims that it is not the absence of the established definition that hinders the development of social capital research but the absence of a clear understanding of what is the object of the study. The paper reviews the development of the conception of social capital to identify abandoned alternative directions of conceptualization and the consequences resulting from the choice of Putnamite conception as its basis. The approach of Putnam goes back to Coleman's understanding of social capital as an abstract construct. The less known approach of Bourdieu appears to be a more consistent one. For Bourdieu, as is for Marx, capital is a social relation which is embodied in thingly forms. While for Coleman, on the contrary, it is a thing embed ded in relations. As a result, the derivative concept of social capital in the 'Putnamite' tradition is subject to circular definitions through other social relations, usually through the concepts of trust and norms. In literature these concepts' definitions often tend to tautologies. The 3rd concept associated with social capital is that of social networks. These are empirically sound, a researchable object on its own, but the inclusion of social norms in definitions of social capital needs a justification other than giving the latter a phenomenon to study. The hindrances to the development of social capital research resulting from the choice of Putnam's definition as basic are: the lack of trustworthy indicators, triviality of observations and of suggestions. The paper gives an overview of the primary results of the authors' empirical research of social capital manifestations at the workplace, the qualitative stage.